| Abstract | In the Canadian Arctic, communities are heavily dependent on ships for dry cargo and fuel. The safety and efficiency of these marine operations can be enhanced through better access to environmental data and regional information. The present report summarizes the progress on the project CASRAS: A Tool for NWT Marine Trade Corridor Efficiency, Reliability and Safety during the period April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022 (government fiscal year 2021-22).
The Canadian Arctic Shipping Risk Assessment System (CASRAS) is a map-based software tool for viewing and analyzing Arctic data – with a focus on ice – relevant to shipping operations. The platform was initially developed through internal funding from NRC’s Arctic Program. In 2019, Transport Canada selected CASRAS as a project to be funded under the National Trade Corridors Fund (NTCF). The aim of this 5-year project is to build upon the CASRAS platform and provide enhanced tools to northern partners – to improve marine trade corridor efficiency, reliability and safety in the western Arctic. The main activities include compilation of environmental data and mariner knowledge, and integration of short-term and longer-range ice hazard forecasts.
The CASRAS software was used by the Government of the Northwest Territories in the 2022 Arctic summer shipping season for their marine activities including community resupply. CASRAS is also currently used by groups at Transport Canada, Canadian Coast Guard and Department of National Defence. These groups have collaborative agreements with NRC and provide funding and support that is outside of the NTCF project. All CASRAS user groups regularly provide feedback and information, which NRC uses to improve the system and bring benefits to all user groups. In this way, NRC provides its own contributions to the NTCF project.
The main development for the CASRAS software in FY21-22 was the addition of short term, regional ice forecasts to the system. Updated software with this new functionality was deployed to all end users in June 2022. Previously, users had access to historical data and daily ice charts. Now, NRC’s Ice Dynamics Forecasting System is being used to generate 2-day, high-resolution ice forecasts that are integrated into CASRAS. This allows users to view and analyze the predicted ice thickness, concentration, ridging and pressure along a planned route.
General development of the CASRAS software continued in FY21-22, including bugs fixes and incorporation of datasets of interest to the stakeholders. Notably for FY21-22, NRC collaborated with the Canadian Hydrographic Service to obtain bathymetry data in a format that can be displayed in CASRAS. This allows CASRAS users to view public, non-navigational hydrographic survey (multi-beam) bathymetric data for the Arctic. Other new features include capability to view ice risk indices modified based on observation of decayed or ridged ice, and capability to view US ice charts in addition to the Canadian charts.
Development is also ongoing for NRC’s Sea Ice Forecasting Neural NETwork (SIFNET) system, whose products will be incorporated into CASRAS beginning later in FY22-23. This will provide users with a longer range (up to 90 day) forecast of the likelihood of ice presence. Seasonal forecasts allow for risk assessments that include the effect of climate trends on ice formation and break-up.
Finally, in FY21-22 work began on a new CASRAS web application with some key data sets from the CASRAS platform. The present software is available only on USB hard drives, which limits NRC’s ability to deploy to multiple end users. End users, especially those from younger generations, have commented that a web app would be heavily utilized. |
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